Harimau Jadian

Shen disappeared around about the time when the surveyor from the Jabatan Pertanian (Agriculture Department) was killed. The surveyor’s body bore all the marks of a tiger attack—neck torn, head twisted, body covered in gashes—but for anyone who cared to look a little closer, it was clear that the perpetrator was no ordinary tiger. Five distinct claw marks were discernible in the prints left behind.

- Jordan Melic

Five claws, not four, like human fingers on a bestial hand.

I hadn’t thought much of Shen when he first arrived. Mother was fond of putting up able-bodied boys in a small hut behind our house to help tend the field—there were enough of them to choose from. Some people would have been thrown in jail for doing that, accused of sheltering the reds, but no one dared say such a thing about Ibu Diah. In any case, so few people in our village remained by then, most either hauled offto the New Villages or simply gone elsewhere because they were fed up with the perpetual skirmishes.

Mother said that Shen was from the hills, from the settlements near the Asli lands where the Temiar went to trade the forest produce that eventually ended up at the markets in Temerloh. Trouble was constantly brewing up there. To bring the area under government control, the army kept sending troops to establish an outpost—but it never worked. People said the reds had found a way to harness the black magic in the tribal lands to protect themselves. I had heard of army encampments that were engulfed by fire ants and of toyols (infant spirit) that got patrols stranded in ravines, but people were always saying things like that and it was hard to say what was true.

Shen didn’t strike me as being very different from many of the boys that Mother put up. He was quiet, hardworking, grateful for the shelter though not likely to stay very long.